Mario Balmaseda played three times in the temple of Cuban art

It was Lenin and Andoba, Reinier and Tony Guaracha, the architect of is permured and Esteban Zaya, but above all those characters was Mario.

Mario Federico Balmaseda Maurisco (Havana, 1941-2022) actor, theater director and playwright who filled an era of national scenic art, which began in the sixties in the Ocuje theater and reached, with notable levels of excellence, until the work of the centurya film by Carlos Quintela made in 2015.

Balmaseda exercised a fine versatility. Although it was not what is called – term perhaps a little demode— character actor, neither did his histrionics take him to the point of making him unrecognizable under the various characterizations. It was him and someone else. More or less expressive, pressing strings that ranged from drama to comedy, but always believable, which is the only condition that an actor cannot miss.

Playing Antonio Maceo in “Baraguá”. Film frame.

Mario Balmaseda played three times in the temple of Cuban art — Mario Balmaseda and Isabel Santos in “Se Permuta”. Film frame.

When this October 8, at the age of 81, there was his death in Havana, sealed an enviable resume, with performances to remember both in the cinema, on television and in the theater. Among his memorable films are the water days (Manuel Octavio Gomez, 1971), The man from Maisinicu (Manuel Pérez, 1973), In a certain way (Sara Gomez, 1974), is swapped (Juan Carlos Tabío, 1983), The second hour of Esteban Zayas (Manuel Pérez, 1984), in three and two (Rolando Diaz, 1985) and The useless death of my partner Manolo (Julio Garcia Espinosa, 1989).

On television, he starred in series and soap operas such as Las adventures of Juan Quin Quin, In silence it had to be, the great rebellion Y A bolero for Eduardo.

Two of the most powerful casts of our audiovisuals had Balmaseda in a prominent place. I’m thinking about The man from Maisinicu Y Silent…In the film by Manuel Pérez, Sergio Corrieri, Raynaldo Miravalles, Enrique Molina, Adolfo Llauradó and Raúl Pomares met, among others. While in the Jesús Cabrera series (1979), undoubtedly one of the most resounding successes on Cuban television, he played Reinier, a security officer, and again alternated with Corrieri, Miravalles and Molina, in addition to Consuelito Vidal, Enrique Santisteban and Salvador Wood, just to name a few.

The performance of Mario Balmaseda in the theater goes through his participation in the movement of amateur artists, as well as his studies in the German Democratic Republic and the leadership of the “Bertolt Brecht” Political Theater, whose direction he would assume in the eighties. The year 1980 can be set as the year of his definitive theatrical consecration. For Lenin’s role in The carillon of the Kremlin (Nicolás Pododin) won the Award for best male performance at the Havana International Theater Festival in 1980; while Andoba (Abraham Rodríguez) received the award for best staging in the same edition of that prestigious event.

Three times Balmaseda played in the temple of Cuban art, and three times he was heard; He was awarded the highest recognition for his specialty in Cuba: National Theater Award (2006), National Television Award (2019) and National Film Award (2021). The latter, unjustly delayed, his precarious health barely allowed him to enjoy it.

If I had to do the unrewarding exercise of choosing that work where Mario made the most significant contributions to our culture, I would choose In a certain way, a film of great artistic and anthropological density, aesthetically daring, with which the lamented Sara Gómez placed herself among the elite of national cinema. The conflict between Mario and Yolanda, ¹ who assume their own names, a worker of marginal origin and a school teacher, is still latent. The fight against the patriarchal system, colonial flaws, sexism, racism, the confrontation between the old that refuses to give way and the seething dialectics of life, is “something of right now” that will not be able to change codes or decrees , but the multifactorial and joint effort of civil society and the State, in a climate of acceptance, respect, educational efforts and full empathy.